Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood before the Chicago City Council on Wednesday and said two little words many Chicagoans have been demanding to hear. ADVERTISING Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood before the Chicago City Council on Wednesday and said two little words
Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood before the Chicago City Council on Wednesday and said two little words many Chicagoans have been demanding to hear.
No, not I resign.
I’m sorry.
The words came early in a 40-minute speech meant to “lay out a path to restoring trust” in the Police Department amid the fallout about the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago cop in October 2014.
The city has been in an uproar since the release of a police dash-cam video that shows Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald in the back and continuing to fire — 16 shots in all — after McDonald falls to the ground. …
Unmoved by the firings of the police chief and the leader of a police disciplinary board, protesters outside council chambers shouted Wednesday for Emanuel to step down.
“I take responsibility for what happened because it happened on my watch,” Emanuel said. “But if we’re also going to begin the healing process, the first step in that journey is my step, and I’m sorry.”
Emanuel didn’t say he was sorry his efforts to contain the political damage left Chicagoans with the perfectly understandable impression that he placed his interests ahead of theirs. We wish he had.
He didn’t chide the aldermen for their failures, either, even though some of them have been pointing fingers at him. They’ve been agitating for hearings into a possible City Hall cover-up and complaining they were suckered into approving a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family.
The truth is the City Council has been signing off on multimillion-dollar legal settlements because of police brutality for far longer than Emanuel has been mayor. Aldermen have never insisted on changes in the department’s policies on the use of deadly force, or in the byzantine disciplinary process that rarely keeps officers accountable for misconduct. …
Emanuel vowed, this time, to follow through. He must.
He’ll have the U.S. Department of Justice looking over his shoulder, likely for many years. In the short term, he’s assigned a task force to figure out how to overhaul the police oversight system, to limit the use of lethal force, to improve transparency and community engagement.
Two emotional moments stood out in Emanuel’s speech.
First, he lamented that African-American parents must instruct their children to behave with caution during a traffic stop, or to avoid congregating in public for fear of drawing the attention of police.
Later, he told a story about having lunch with a group of young men who had been in trouble with the law and asking them to tell him “the one thing I need to know.”
One answered the question with a question: “Do you think the police would ever treat you the way they treat me?”
“The answer is no, and that’s wrong,” Emanuel said, pounding the lectern. “And that has to change in this city. That has to come to an end now.”
That line drew loud and sustained applause from the community leaders who were invited to the meeting. Several aldermen later described Emanuel’s words as “heartfelt” but called on him to back them up with action. …
Emanuel sought to frame Wednesday’s meeting as “a defining moment on the issues of crime and policing — and the even larger issues of truth, justice and race.”
History will make that call. It’s a long way off.
— Chicago Tribune
